#also ignore my other fics lol they are unfinished and I have yet to get back to them

[micechicken]

The Prince awakes alone to recall the things he claims to forget while Hat Kid wants to him to go somewhere.

Inspired by the song Murders by Miracle Musical (Tally Hall).

==

I wrote a fic!

[vmures]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I got tagged by the delightful @mirrorthoughts 💜💜💜 Thank you for the tag!

How many works do you have on ao3?

13 at the moment

What's your total ao3 word count?

218,148 words (mostly thanks to one very long fic, lol)

What fandoms do you write for?

Currently Teen Wolf and 9-1-1. I am noodling a few ideas for Stranger Things. I've also written Buffy the Vampire Slayer stuff, mostly crossovers in the past, but haven't gotten around to importing them to ao3. They can be found on Twisting the Hellmouth under the same user name as ao3 (vMures)

Top five fics by kudos:

Hanging On (You're All That's Left to Hold On To)

A Hallowed Pack

A Change of Luck

A Merry War

Finding Home

All Teen Wolf fics, mostly Steter with one Sterek fic in the mix. 😄

Do you respond to comments?

I certainly always try to.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm a happily ever after sort of writer generally, so none of my fics have very angsty endings. Just not the sort of thing I tend to write.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

They all have happy endings so far. Not sure I could pick which one has the happiest ending.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not usually, at least not on ao3. Worst comments I've gotten have been on fanfiction.net and I have been ignoring those for decades at this point. I think I don't get much hate on ao3 in large part because I don't allow anonymous comments on my work and people are less likely to leave hate comments when they have to do it with their official account. I've gotten a few odd comments, some weird nitpicky ones, and some demanding ones from time to time. I always try to respond politely to those, but sometimes get a bit snarky.

Do you write smut?

Not as of yet. But I may some day try my hand at it. No promises though. lol

Craziest crossover:

I once wrote a crossover between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, and X-Men (it can be found on Twisting the Hellmouth).

On ao3, my only crossover so far is a Teen Wolf/Harry Potter crossover: A Hallowed Pack

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone just asked if they could translate Midnight Rain into Russian, so that will be my first fic translated into another language.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really

All time favourite ship?

Cannot pick favorites for the life of me. In Teen Wolf, I love Steter, Sterek, Stetopher, Stargent, Steterek, Dargent, Detergent (Derek/Chris/Peter), and so many more combinations of my favorite characters. lol Stranger Things I read mostly Steddie and Ronance, but am open to quite a few other pairings.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Yep, my one unfinished WIP Buffy/Stargate crossover, The Road Not Taken. After a decade of agonizing over whether or not to mark it abandoned and give myself grace for not finishing it, I finally did so. Part of me still would love to finish it, but I lost the notes I had on it and doubt I'll ever find the desire to rebuild the story and figure out where I had wanted it to go.

What are your writing strengths?

I'm pretty good at writing natural sounding dialogue and proud of that fact.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have been called a wordy bitch or told my writing is very dense. So that could be considered a weakness. Otherwise, I'd say writing action scenes and making sure the actions make sense and flow properly.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

As long as there's a translation somewhere, I don't mind. Sometimes it is effective to include.

First fandom you wrote in?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Favorite fic you've written?

Oh man, this is a particularly hard question. I love A Merry War a lot, but ultimately my absolute favorite so far is Hanging On (You're All That's Left to Hold On To). That fic is my baby. Took me two years to finish and I poured a lot of my heart and soul into it.

Once again I've hit the tagging portion of the tag game and drawn an absolute blank on who to tag. So consider yourself tagged if you want to play along! 💜💜💜

[farfromdaylight]

2023 writing meme

i don't usually do the fic writer meme because i don't usually write a lot of fic other than longfic. but this year was an outlier, so, here we are!

Number of fics written (posted) in 2023: 23. seriously, who am i? plus 3 finished and 2 unfinished, both unposted.

Total word count of posted fic: 57,515

Total word count of unposted fic: 66,701

Total word count overall: 124,216

Worth noting that some of my posted fic this year was written during Nanowrimo last year, so the numbers are a bit skewed.

Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIV. I did write one FFXIV/Pacific Rim crossover.

all of my fic is on AO3.

Best title: I'm really biased towards heaven can wait (WoL/Exarch), my big bang fic. I also quite like before you're burned, become the sun (Alisaie) but that's just because I've always liked that lyric.

Worst title: to believe in you (i'll try) (Cloud/Tifa). I was going for a theme across all of my Cloti week fics but I don't like that title at all...

Best first line: From before you're burned, become the sun:

The sun never sets, because there is no sun.

Worst first line: From to believe in you (i'll try):

Cloud is so different.

Best last line: From heaven can wait:

"Welcome to the First, Warrior of Darkness," he says, lifting up his brother. "Let's get you inside. We've got a world to save."

Worst last line: From to believe in you (i'll try) (seriously, I am not happy with this fic LOL):

For now, they have a reactor to take down.

Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Less than I was supposed to, yet more than I expected. I had various health issues throughout the year that prevented me from writing a lot (have you ever tried to write when you can't sleep more than 3 hours at a time? Yeah) but also I managed to write for two fandom weeks and completed Nanowrimo. So, not bad!

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I didn't think I'd write so many Cloti fics! I've loved the pairing for a long time but I really didn't think I would write so much. Really glad I did though. Also, I had no plans to write the Alisaie or Ashe fics and I'm glad I stretched myself and wrote them.

What’s your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

heaven can wait, no contest. I still go back and reread it sometimes and just have a blast. It's a story I very much wrote for myself, and I'm really glad it's gotten a good reception.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

By kudos: amber embrace (WoL/G'raha)

By hits: love grows (WoL/G'raha)

By comments and bookmarks: heaven can wait

Deeply funny to me that the NSFW fic is the most popular. The people want what they want.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

If we ignore the fic I posted an hour ago that has literally 1 hit so far: for you, i walk on (Tifa), which I wrote for the second volume of the Tifa zine. But that's only by hits and kudos; it got very lovely comments and I had a great time with the zine.

By comments, I have 5 fics without comments at all. :( One of them has 30 kudos! Please comment on fics, folks.

Story that could have been better?

Not to beat the dead horse, but to believe in you (i'll try). It's meant to be a Remake fic, but I haven't finished replaying Remake and I only half-remember the Cloti scenes. I'm working on replaying it now, so hopefully I can add to it soon.

Sexiest story?

I mean, according to the numbers, it's either amber embrace or love grows. But actually it's one of the fics I didn't post this year. I wrote a 16,000-word fic about my WoL's honeymoon with G'raha. It is very spicy and it will not be seeing the light of day because it belongs to a non-canon AU.

Saddest story?

I don't know that I have a good answer to this one. I mean, heaven can wait is angsty, but that's different.

Most fun?

Most silly is definitely shuffle or boogie (WoL/G'raha), which was just an excuse to write a fic about Triple Triad.

Story with single sweetest moment?

PROBABLY THE WEDDING FIC, LOL. Or the denouement of heaven can wait. Or the holiday fic I just posted.

Most fucked-up story?

I wrote some vanilla-ass fic this year, I ain't got nothing for this.

Hardest story to write?

Honestly, a lot of the Cloti fics were tough. I'm not really rusty on the canon (FFVII lives rent free in my brain) but I hadn't written the characters in a pairing for some years. The Ashe fic was also tough for similar reasons: I've never written FFXII fic before. The Endwalker fic (WIP) has been really hard because it's some tough content and I've been struggling with how much of the canon to cover and how much to make up whole cloth.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

heaven can wait, which I really just had a blast with. This was last year's Nanowrimo, though, so... Maybe the holiday fic? I wrote it in a couple hours last weekend.

Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?

Not really. I don't tend to write fics about characters I don't have a firm grasp of.

Most overdue story?

Beyond the Vault, the eternal albatross around my neck. Also the Endwalker fic, because it's taken me two years to even have a WIP...

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

This year was good at helping me fight off the perfectionist tendency! I posted a lot of the fandom week fics within a week (or shorter) of writing them, and it let me chill out considerably about polish. Sometimes you can just write a fic and you don't have to go over it with a fine-tooth comb, you can just post it.

[starsbegantofall]

I finished a multi-year long fic at ao3 in December 2023 and I think I'm done writing fanfic period. Not for lack of desire to write, of the hundreds of voices in my head talking 24/7, 3 are always asking hey when are we going to write fic, but since it took me 5 years to finish one fic, and I have at least one long fic from my many previous fandoms left unfinished, well, I just don't want to keep being that fic author that readers hate lol.

Which is too bad, I feel that fic is the ideal and perfect... gift? compensation?... for my time in fandom spent enjoying other people's art and writing and activities. Fic is free to share, doesn't require anything other than a word processor and internet for research, no one has to pay anything to read it either, easy to ignore if ppl aren't into it (or it should be anyway), and if ppl do like it, they will share it also for free and other people can enjoy. But there's nothing I currently like that really inspires me to write, much less finish a fic lol, even though I have read plenty of fic in those fandoms and there's stuff to write about. Once I leave a fandom I don't go back either.

Perhaps a lot of reluctance also comes from AI tomfoolery persisting, which we haven't killed yet like we killed nfts, and my general loss of faith in humanity being supportive and appreciative of the arts and literature, and instead plagiarizing and policing morality. It's like... what am I working so hard for, straining my eyes and neck for? What am I getting out of this other than the accomplishment of finishing a creative work? A scattering of kudos and 3 likes on Twitter, is it worth the pain? No one's paying me for writing nor should they, and no one is buying my art (although that I can understand, it's all right but is it $20 all right, no, it's not, let's be real). So am I just leaving behind a body of work archived for the next generation of fangirls and fujoshis to research? Is there even going to be a next generation? Haven't I paid my dues to fandom by now? I'm 40 years old, people should be dedicating their writing and art to me for all that I've contributed so far for almost 20 years.

But my brain would not let me rest. I have to be creating something constantly. I can't just consume mindlessly. Right now, I'm done writing and am just doing personal art. I would work on cosplay and other crafts but cons big enough for me to put on a wig for no longer exist in my immediate area, and I will eventually run out of room to store costumes and crafts, too.... Not sure what else to do, but it is what it is. For now. Until a meteor strikes the planet and kills us all.

[emachinescat]

Febuwhump Day 13: Won't regain consciousness (unfinished, to be completed tomorrow!)

Fandom: Psych

So I'm still running a bit behind with Febuwhump, but I'm making it my goal to post whatever I do have written every day. The full story for Day 13 (possibly made up of multiple chapters, or maybe just a lengthy one-shot, unsure at this point) is going to fulfill a request for @justanotherdutch-asiangirl here on Tumblr. Also, if you recognize the name of the drug lord, I basically genderbent and borrowed it from The Magnus Archives. And the SEAL who saves Shawn is loosely based on Thomas Magnum from the Magnum P.I. reboot, just because that show's my newest hyperfixation lol. :) Anyway, like yesterday, if there are any errors, I'll fix them tomorrow when I post the whole story. And yes, Shawn *is* in a coma, even if the story doesn't say it yet, so it still counts for this prompt! Hopefully I'll find the time to get fully caught up on Febuwhump soon and won't fall farther behind! Life is a lot right now, so we'll see! Either way, I plan to post the full fic (or chapter 1, at least) on AO3 and share it here tomorrow, so stay tuned if you're interested!

Juliet

On a normal day, the drive from San Francisco to Santa Barbara took exactly four hours and fifty-five minutes. Today, it took Juliet O’Hara just under three and a half.

She’d been in court when Lassiter had called, waiting to testify in a trial for a murder case that she’d spent weeks cracking. When she’d checked the screen and seen her former partner’s ID, she’d slid the vibrating phone back into her purse. He had to be calling about dinner plans later that evening.

Juliet had actually convinced him to go on a double date with her and Shawn, a task that had been months in the making. She’d had to swear on the lives of her grandmother and both of her cats that Shawn would behave himself to get him to agree.

Five minutes later, her phone went off again. Rolling her eyes, Juliet undid the snap on her bag and peeked inside. Still Lassiter. What in the world was so important that he was trying to call her when he knew she was about to testify? Part of her worried that he was trying to back out of dinner, so she closed her purse and refocused on the trial. Like she would let him go back on his word now. If they just spend a little more time together outside of work, Juliet thought, maybe they can finally get over their pride and admit they’re friends. It was a long shot, but these were the two most important men in her life, and she was tired of being stuck in the middle all the time.

Not even a minute after, he called again. The old man sitting next to her shot her a disapproving look as she dug into her purse, ignored the call, and then tapped out a quick text: WHAT? I’m in court.

Almost instantly, her phone buzzed again. Emergency. Call me now.

Gut twisting over on itself, heart hammering against her ribcage, she managed to type. About to testify. Can it wait?

It took less than thirty seconds for him to respond, but it felt like thirty minutes. She could barely unlock her screen when she got the notification, her fingers trembling and palms sweaty. She could feel her fight or flight instincts swelling inside of her, the inescapable need to do something, to get up, to leave, to call Lassiter then and there. But she maintained her composure, outwardly at least, and waited for the return text with all the patience of a high schooler at 2:45 on the day before summer break.

When she saw Lassiter’s response, her blood turned to ice in her veins. She was on her feet before she’d registered she was moving, and when the judge demanded an explanation, she stammered something about a family emergency and nearly tripped over her own feet racing to the exit.

No. It’s Shawn.

No other information, but Juliet knew that whatever had happened, it was bad. The only time Lassiter had ever called Shawn by his first name had been when he was in trouble. The Garth Longmore nightmare came immediately to mind.

She’d dialed before she’d even left the courthouse, and Lassiter picked up on the first ring. She rushed outside, away from prying ears, and demanded, sans greeting, “Is he okay?”

The short but heavy hesitation brought tears to her eyes. She already knew the answer. No way would Lassiter interrupt such an important trial just to change dinner plans or tattle on Shawn for some stupid prank.

Finally, Lassiter had answered, voice thick with an emotion Juliet couldn’t quite place, “He’s alive.” The way he said it didn’t inspire much hope or confidence. The tears crested, spilling down her cheeks in silent streams.

“What happened?”

Another pause, this one shorter but just as weighted. “It’s a long story. I don’t even know all of it myself. I’ll tell you what I can in a minute, but you probably need to square things with your trial first and head this way.”

If someone had taken a carving knife and hollowed out Juliet’s chest, it would have hurt less than Lassiter’s words. She choked on a sob, chest so tight it made her head spin. Get it together, she ordered herself, recognizing all too well the beginnings of a panic attack. She could break down later. Right now, she had to get to Santa Barbara. She had to get to Shawn.

So she had called Karen, who had already spoken to Lassiter, though she claimed to know nothing more than Juliet did at this point. Juliet couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth, but she hadn’t pressed, especially when the chief told her to go, that she would take care of everything else and be on her own way to Santa Barbara as soon as she could. Juliet had tried to book a flight, but there were none that left soon enough, so she’d decided to drive.

For the first half hour of the trip, she’d talked to Lassiter, who had filled her in, more gently than Juliet had ever thought possible. From what he said, Shawn and Gus had been working on a private case. Shawn had come to the station poking around for information a couple of times, but they had been promptly shooed off. The man they were asking about had ties to vicious drug lord Nicholas Orsinov, and they had been told in no uncertain terms that if they kept pushing this dangerous matter, they wouldn’t see another SBPD case for the next two years.

As usual, Shawn hadn’t listened, not to Lassiter, not to Gus, not to his dad, all who told him to back off and refused to help. About two hours ago, the SBPD had gotten a call about a John Doe that had been spotted in the waves about a hundred feet from shore. By pure luck, the guy who found him was an ex-Navy SEAL and had managed to get the man to shore. The John Doe, of course, had been Shawn.

“The guy who found him’s a real hero,” Lassiter said seriously. “Realized Shawn still had a pulse, got him to shore using his surfboard as a stretcher, then called 911 and performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. Even came to the hospital to check up on him later.”

“But what the hell happened?” Juliet demanded, her whole body numb except for the swelling nausea in her gut.

“Best we can tell, Shawn decided to keep poking into Orsinov on his own, even after we told him to leave it alone, to find some other way to solve his case. Either Orsinov himself or some of his goons must have caught him, and decided to tie up any loose ends.” A pause. “I’d bet just about anything that it wasn’t Orsinov himself. He’s too smart to have left anything to chance. So that’s something to be grateful for, O’Hara. It could have been a bullet between the eyes, and there’s no coming back from that.”

As usual, Lassiter’s pep talks sucked. Even in her state of shock, with the swirling tide of grief and fury and terror pounding madly against her defenses, widening the cracks in her armor and threatening to tear her down from the inside, Juliet had enough awareness to realize that Lassiter wasn’t telling her everything.

“Look, O’Hara,” he said, discomfort clear in his voice. For a moment, Juliet felt sorry for him; this kind of emotional conversation was way outside of his wheelhouse. But they had been partners – were still partners, even if Lassiter was now chief and Juliet lived five hours away – and he had been the one to ID Shawn at the hospital, and she knew that he would never have delegated this phone call to anyone else, that Juliet needed to hear this from him. “You’re on the road, and you’re already upset enough. I really think it would be best–”

“I really think it would be best if you told me the truth,” Juliet snarled. She took a deep breath. It felt like her heart had been replaced by a lead weight. “I’m sorry, Carlton. But please, I need to know.”

[viola-ophelia]

2021 Fanfic Year in Review

thanks @hmsannlett for the tag! :))

Total Completed Works: 11

Word Count: 67,231....... wow holy shit, that’s way more than i was expecting it to be!! though, to be fair, i think a large portion of that was taken up by my silmarillion longfic grieving for the living, as well as my (sadly unfinished) andre turns au, color of blood. 

Fandoms I’ve Written in: turn: washington’s spies, the silmarillion, and for the first time, marvel! (mostly loki-related stuff, let’s be real.) 

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?: hmm... i’d say i wrote the amount that i expected, though i was definitely writing more prolifically last winter/spring and tapered off in late summer/fall as i got busier with college and enjoyed a relatively non-pandemicy social life lol. one thing that 2021 taught me is that i’m definitely a one-shot only kinda girl... i struggle too much with plots, pacing, and motivation to maintain a good longfic, but that’s okay because i do love me some short and sweet storytelling! 

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year?: honestly, i’m so proud of this marvel one: all the tears i’ve shed, love. loki is a hard character to get right for me despite relating to him so much, but i think i really got his voice right in this one. also, it was the first time that i felt like i successfully pulled off a very different structure than i’m used to, while still sticking to my trademark narrative style (which is heaps of introspective character study held together by a feeble excuse for a plot, if you’re into that haha). 

Do You Have Any Fanfic Goals For The New Year?: honestly, my goal is simply to keep writing, to keep having fun with it, and to hopefully keep producing pieces i’m proud of. :)  

though, i would like to write something with a proper plot this year. maybe even an AU! *glances awkwardly at my ao3 full of canon-compliant character studies lol* 

Most Popular Story Of The Year?: i’m not counting grieving for the living because i wrote most of it in 2020, sooo... by kudos it was all the tears i’ve shed, love! (only 39 kudos... shhh it’s fine i’m a small writer and i write for small fandoms haha) 

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: i would say all of my turn fics, but that’s because turn itself is woefully underappreciated by the universe haha! so i humbly submit my wanda/vision story brand new sounds in my mind, which, to be fair, i wrote after watching only one (1) marvel movie, but i still quite like lol. 

Most Fun Story To Write: swaying as the room burned down was my andre/peggy story for turn week 2021. there’s something about their dynamic and the juxtaposition in this fic that was immensely satisfying to write! 

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: i wrote the opening scene of all the tears i’ve shed, love during a really tough anxiety flare when my anxiety was manifesting specifically as hypochondria. looking back on it now..... well uh. i see now why i related so much to kid loki accidentally discovering his jotun heritage and thinking there’s something wrong with his body and that he’s dying. 

Biggest Disappointment: that i wasn’t able to finish color of blood, tbh. well, i learned my lesson about starting to publish a longfic before i’m actually finished writing it and haven’t figured out how it ends yet!  

Biggest Surprise: probably that i branched out into writing for the mcu! it’s something that i never could’ve envisioned myself successfully being able to write for back in 2020, but i’m so glad that i tried it and will definitely be continuing to do so in 2022! 

i’m tagging... hmm let’s see. @thatfeanorian @maironsmaid @sauronnaise @deepfried-shortpeople @moodrose @tallmadgeandtea @wmhowe @elrondsscribe and any other writers who follow me! (feel free to ignore this if you want lol. also i don’t mind if you reblog or make your own, either is good!) 

[elytrafemme]

admittedly i get sort of nervous with cough syrup because like. okay coming at this from personal experience, if i see a fic with a really high word count especially an unfinished one, if i wasn’t already following the fic i get really nervous to join in on it. and like. just looking at my doc for cough syrup right now its around 58k words and thats just up to chapter 11. we haven’t even hit the major inciting incident of the plot yet. so i’m getting kind of worried because i want to pace this well and do this well but i 

(1) don’t want to be writing cough sryup still when we hit like october 2022 i really want to finish cough syrup in a timely enough manner that i can work on other projects

(2) i don’t want people to get scared to read cough syrup because of the high word counts. i try to make the writing as easy to read as possible and i try to make the chapters generally pretty bearable? but i mean they’re all in the 3-6k ballpark a piece and i know that’s a lot for people so just. i’m kind of worried. 

also the whole inciting incident bit is worrying me as well lol because on one hand i kinda need it to do like all the plot stuff i’ve planned but also i can’t really envision it happening within the next five chapters and uh. like say that i don’t hit that plot point by the time we get to chapter 15, that means that if we, hypothetically (and i do mean hypothetically i don’t have a plan for when it lands yet as i just said), have it happen in chapter 15, then the entire fic might be like. 

okay i just counted it out. so IF we have the inciting incident happen in chapter 15, at a rough minimum, 44 total chapters. multiply that by like typical word count and. 176k words. 

sigh. this is all just me thinking aloud feel free to ignore this and i’ll sort it out, but. i don’t want the plot to go too fast because that would feel shitty but at the same time how much character building do i really NEED to establish before shit hits the fan, you know? it feels far too soon but also in a sense that’s the point? so? i don’t know? 

(but yeah if you got literally anything out of this post just know that we may be looking at a confirmed 40-50 chapter count for cough syrup. i really really hope that’s okay sorry i know that’s super lengthy but i’m hoping to get back up to weekly updates soon so that it doesn’t wrap around very much! worst case scenario i can update twice a week on school breaks so hopefully we can make this work thank you all for the continued support i promise i will make this fic good because i really really want to make it good JHDFHJDF it is my. i love it very much and i have very high standards for myself)

[liannyeong]

Unfinished #2

Summary: A collection of unfinished fics. The main theme is inequality between the rich and poor, and gender stereotypes, though poorly challenged lol. Also, mechanic!Jaebeom hehe

Word count: 3109

Pairing: Jaebeom X OC

Warning(s): Angst

A/N: I had this idea back in 2017, inspired by the song ‘Uptown girl’.

"Hey, Jaebum! Come over here for a minute!"

Jaebum sighs. He stares at the engine longingly, as if it could help him think of the solution to the car. He ran several tests on the vehicle, yet he seemed not be able to get the engine to function normally.

"Hey Jaebum!" Mark shouts from across the workshop again.

"Just a moment!" Jaebum yells back. Jaebum slams the hood shut and pulls out a cloth from his back pocket. He wipes his greasy hands and arms as he approaches the red-haired male. Mark has his crimson hair slicked back, the sleeves of his blue uniform rolled above his elbows. For a mechanic, he's probably the most scrawny person ever, but no one knows better than to mess around with him. Anyone who ever gets on his bad side will never look at people his size the same way again.

"Meet the new mechanic!" Mark says cheerfully as he gestures to the person next to him. Jaebum raises his brows at the sight of the new mechanic, before flicking his eyes back at Mark. The older male doesn't seem to get Jaebum's incredulous look. Or even he does, he doesn't show it.

"A girl. Nice," Jaebum spells it out for Mark.

The girl seems to be taken aback from his comment. Her smile previously faltered a little. Her mouth opens to say something but Mark beats her to it. "What's wrong with that?"

"It's just that... A girl... A mechanic... Sounds like a weird combination to me," Jaebum shrugs.

"Why, does my gender bother you?" the girl snaps this time, much to Jaebum's surprise. He stares at the female, wide-eyed, as if she just did something miraculous in front of him. How dare she speak to him like that? His expression schools into something like annoyance. He folds his arms, leaning in closer. 

"No female works in a place like this."

"Hey, hey," Mark tries to intervene the heated atmosphere, a hand pressed against Jaebum's chest.

"Well then, I'm not like other girls!" Her face turns a little red, and Jaebum cannot help but laugh at her expression. She reminds him of a child who throws a tantrum when he doesn't get a toy he wants.

"Sure," Jaebum's tone lowers as he challenges the female, "let's see if you can stand working here for a week."

Eyebrows furrowed together, her tone sharper, she questions, "Are you looking down on me?"

"Why? Can't handle it?" Jaebum sneers. "Then why don't you go home and cry to your mommy if you're not up for this?" He waves his hand mockingly.

"Alright, that's enough!" Mark bellows, shoving the younger male away with a glare that means "I'll deal with you later". He then turns to the female, bringing her away from Jaebum. Her eyes linger on the black-haired male, her eyes darker and there's a flame behind it that Jaebum reckons as anger. Mark ushers her around the workshop, doing a tour for her.

Jaebum doesn't waste his time and heads back to the car he was working on earlier.

---

"The heck's your problem?" Mark snarls. He keeps his volume low, considering the female is in earshot. From the clinking sounds in the workshop, Jaebum guesses she has already started working on her first vehicle. There's no one else in the workshop apart from the three of them. Jackson, their boss and their friend, was out of town for a little business trip.

"The girl's the problem. She's not fit for the job," Jaebum spits, not bothered if she could hear him.

"How do you know that? You've never seen her work before!"

"She's a girl!" Jaebum growls. The red-haired male was about to argue back but Jaebum gives him no chance. "This is a car workshop, Mark! How is that puny kid gonna handle all the work here? She's probably gonna collapse one day! We're running a business, for goodness' sake! Not some stupid fairytale that has princes saving the princess' ass all the time!"

Mark scoffs. "Seriously? That's your reason? I'm starting to wonder who is the real girl here."

Jaebum rolls his eyes, mumbling curses under his breath. "How the heck did you even get this kid?"

"I didn't. She came to me, bringing a recommendation letter from Jackson."

Jaebum frowns. Jackson sent her? Then it would mean that-

"That just shows how good she is. Don't you think so?" Mark smiles, clapping his shoulder. "Give her a chance. Who knows, you might come around to like her." He winks, and Jaebum raises his arm across his chest as if he's going to hit the older male. The red-haired just laughs, ruffling Jaebum's hair, and walks away.

---

Days and weeks went by and Jaebum still doesn't change his way of treatment towards her. No, it's not that he hates her. In fact, it's their way of interaction. Jaebum has soften towards the female, that's for sure. He teases her a lot, and they do still bicker frequently too, but both of them knows that it's nothing personal. Their friendship was born on bickering and arguments, and it continues to stay that way.

He's no longer skeptical of her abilities for she has proven her expertise. She's able to diagnose the problem and provide the solution quicker than anyone in the workshop. She doesn't have any problems carrying the tires around or any other tools too. If anything, she's the most competent in the job, but Jaebum will never say that aloud.

Mark and Jackson has become more comfortable around her - in fact, way too comfortable - joking around with her. She smiles and laughs a lot around them too. Her laughter rings in the air, not as high pitched as Mark's or as hysterical as Jackson's, but it's there. There's elegance in the way she laughs, now that Jaebum realizes, and there's elegance in the way she moves and acts. While the girls in the neighborhood laughs normally, she doesn't. She has a hand over her mouth as she laughs. It's as if it's a sin if she were to show her mouth as she laughs. Jaebum finds it weird, but he decides not to care anyway. Besides, why the hell is he even paying so much attention on her?

"You like her, don't you?" Mark said one day, cheek resting against his palm, as he watched the black-haired does his work.

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Jaebum questioned back, annoyance evident in his tone.

"I see the way you look at her. It's obvious, Jaebum." A knowing grin plastered on the older male's face, and Jaebum wanted nothing but to scrub it away.

"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me," the red-haired said as he patted his chest. He sent the younger a wink, to which Jaebum rolled his eyes and threw a dirty and greasy cloth at his face. Mark only laughed as he threw it back.

"Jaebum! Let's have dinner at the diner after this!" Mark yells from the other side of the workshop, breaking Jaebum from his reverie.  His mind snaps back to reality and Jackson's screeching laughter finally flows into his ears. His eyes float from Mark to Jackson, who is playfully joking around with her. It's as if Jackson is just a child in the workshop, not the boss. Her lips are curled up into a huge smile, her eyes crinkling into crescents and Jaebum feels both warmth and a twinge in his heart. Jaebum's eyes fleet back to Mark, who already has a knowing look on his face. Jaebum ignores it, holding up an 'okay' sign and nothing more.

---

Jaebum hears her name being called by a voice rather deep yet calming and soft. He looks up to see a male standing over at their table, eyes blinking at the female. He's tall and lean, black shirt tucked into his denim jeans. His hair is carded back and a pair of glasses is perched on the bridge of his nose. 

"J-Jinyoung!" she stutters, and Jaebum's attention is directed to her. Jaebum is seated across her, and he notices the stiff on her shoulders. Her face is so red, eyes blown wide at the sight of the stranger. "W-what are you doing here?"

Amused, the stranger named Jinyoung softly chuckles. "Eating dinner, of course," he says as he lifts his food tray a little.

"D-dinner?" she echoes. Jaebum notices how cautious and wary she is now with the sudden presence of the stranger. Why is she so flustered? Who is this Jinyoung anyway? Why does his presence affect her so much? Does she... like him?

She stretches her neck and looks around the diner, as if searching for something - or someone. What is she so scared about?

Jinyoung must have noticed this behavior too, for he says, "I'm alone." It's evident how relief washed over her: her body relaxes, her shoulders slumped downwards, and the dusty pink cheeks drained. 

"I see," she lets out at last. 

"Join us, then," Jackson cheerfully suggests to the stranger. If Jaebum could, he would love to kick his boss in the guts. Why should they let a stranger join their dinner table? He knows Jackson is a social butterfly, that bulky man loves creating new connections but why involve him? 

"That's really nice-"

"No!" she interjects midway into Jinyoung's sentence, much to Jaebum's surprise. There's a hint of agitation in her tone, and Jaebum wonders just what kind of secret is she holding from them. Why else would she insist so badly that Jinyoung shouldn't join them? Of course, Jaebum is more than happy with that decision. But her behavior around this Jinyoung intrigues him. What's truly happening? Why is she like this? What is she desperately trying to hide away from them? "I need to talk to Jinyoung, actually," she says, grabbing the said male's arm and forcing him to move. She has never been a touchy person. To see that moment of skin contact surprises Jaebum beyond words. "I'll join back later!"

As Jinyoung leads them to his table, Jaebum just watches the duo with hawk eyes. She doesn't even let go of his arm until they reached the table at the far corner of the diner. Such a shady corner where couples would always be seen making out as if they are invisible. Disgusting, really, but Jaebum desperately hopes they don't do anything like that. That they aren't anything like that.

So Jaebum ends up glancing at the two from time to time. They're deep in conversation, and she doesn't even look back at them once, despite Jackson's hysterical laughter and Mark's high-pitched one. Just what's so important that makes her attention to be fully focused on him only? It's like they are in their own world, tuned out from the rest of the world.

Both Jinyoung and her stands up and the male just smiles at her warmly. Jaebum wonders if she likes that Jinyoung. After all, he is handsome. And that air of elegance around him, there's some class attached to him. He seems like a nice guy too, a gentleman too. Jaebum wonders if she's attracted to men like that. And for once, the anger surge within him once more. Why is he even like this?

The two part ways, the male leaving the diner while she heads back to their table.

"Who was that?" Jackson asks when the female takes the empty seat next to him.

"Just a friend," she answers as she grabs her abandoned glass, pouring soda into it. The drink sizzles. Jaebum watches as the air bubble rises from the bottom to the top, which then pops. 

"Just a friend?" Mark echoes, curiosity in his face.

"Actually, he's a neighbor," she answers. "We grew up together, that's all."

Then why was she so eager to talk to him? She could have waited till they reach home. Jaebum wonders, questions burning in his head. He doesn't speak them out. Instead, he clenches his fingers around his glass. Why is she so secretive? So... unreachable?

That's when it struck Jaebum hard. She has always been far away. That same elegance, he has it too. His aura has never been the same like the others in the neighborhood. Just as she does, he laughs with his hand clasp over his mouth. Just as she does, he has the same prim and proper attitude. They're so similar, and Jaebum just can't work it out in his head. How can they be so similar? Yet so different from the people around him? Different from him? And it dawns on Jaebum. That thought irks him.

Mark nudges his elbow, nodding at his fingers around his glass. Jaebum follows his gaze and stares at his white knuckles. He didn't even realize how hard he was clenching around his glass. He loosens his grip, but picks the glass up and gulps down the contents. For the rest of the night, Jaebum pretends that everything's fine, even though his heart feels restless.

---

"Jaebum, are you okay?" she asks, drawing his attention from his thoughts. Suddenly, the air feels heavy and tense, as if it weighs on his shoulder. Jaebum just nods, making sure his gaze is straight ahead and not on her face. He doesn't know why he does so, but he just couldn't stand looking at her these days. His fingers fiddles with his mug, hoping that she leaves the pantry soon. 

But of course she doesn't.

"Are you sure everything is okay?" she asks once more, slipping onto the empty space on the couch. "You're not sick or anything?" Her face is so close to his, and Jaebum can't help but suck in his breath. At the close proximity, he notices how her skin seems soft, almost flawless despite working at the mechanics. Her lashes are long and curled upwards prettily. Jaebum's heart beats faster, his body burns up, his palms turn sweaty, and suddenly he's so conscious of everything. 

Even though she has been working with them for half a year already, only now did Jaebum finally realize.

He has fallen for her.

No wonder he's always annoyed whenever there are guys around her. No wonder he gets mad when she smiles at other guys. He's jealous. That's why he dislikes the idea of other guys getting too close to her. That he dislikes the idea that other guys can see her adorable smiles. That he detests the idea that she's not his. That she might fall for other guys. Guys who are more capable than him. Guys who are smarter. More handsome. Wealthier. Guys like Jinyoung.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he spits, disdain on his tone. It's more of a lie that he wants to believe in. That he didn't just realized his newfound feelings. That he didn't just fallen for the mechanic girl that he dislikes so much. Damn, Mark will laugh at him.

"Are you sure?" she repeats her question. "Look, if I did anything wrong, will you please tell me?"

"No, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Then why won't you look at me in the eye?"

Well, shit. Jaebum inhales sharply. He pretends he doesn't hear her. He stands up, dumps his mug into the sink and exits the pantry. He hears her calling after him, but he ignores her. He heads over to the car he's supposed to work on, trying his best to tune the girl's voice out. But the said girl storms over to where he's working, questioning him once more. "What's wrong, Jaebum? Tell me if I did anything wrong!" She has been so insistent that it pushes him to his limits. She slams his toolkit shut. A wrong move.

Irate, Jaebum shoves her away. "Can you back off? I'm trying to do my job here!" Jaebum feels a pang of guilt in his chest, seeing the mixture of hurt and shock across her face. Jaebum has never been so rough at her, despite their usual bickers. Jaebum has always been careful not to touch the female no matter how much she gets on his nerves back then. But this was the first. And rough too.

"What the hell?" is what she spits a moment later.

"Just leave me alone. I've got work to do," Jaebum utters coldly, turning his back on the female.

"Yeah, sure, but you needn't shove me away like that! What's wrong with you?"

Jaebum slams his hands onto the rim of the car hood. He turns on his heels to face the female once more. "What's wrong with me?" he echoes as he stomps forward, only stopping when he's a few inches away from her face. Jabbing a finger onto her chest, he shouts, "What's wrong with you? Why the hell do you even work here?"

"What are you-"

"You're an uptown girl, aren't you?" Jaebum spits. The way her eyes dilate tells him that it's the truth. Before she can even utter another word, he adds, "That guy back there. He's an uptown guy too, isn't he?"

"So what?" she snaps, after she musters the courage.

Jaebum sneers. "Why don't you just stay at your mansion and be a pretty girl and let those filthy rich bastards woo you? Why the heck do you have to come here? Are you turning us into a joke that you can tell to your whiny friends back there?"

"What the hell?! You think I would do such thing?!"

"Of course you would! You're an uptown girl! You're a spoiled brat who gets everything your way! People like you disgust me the most! People like you are the ones I hate the most!" Jaebum hurls those words at her without a second thought. His chest heaves, and as much as he feels satisfied for spitting such words to her, regret slowly blooms in his chest. But he decides to pay no attention to it.

"How could you- Even after all this while, you still think I'm that kind of person?!" she screams back. Jaebum sees how her eyes turn moist and her face turns scarlet red. By now, Mark and Jackson have rushed over to them, pulling them away from one another. "You know nothing about me! But fine! Since I disgust you the most, I'll leave! I'll freaking leave and disappear from your sight forever!" she yells. She pushes Jackson out of her way and bolts away into the direction to the locker room.

"Leave then! As if I care!" Jaebum shouts after her.

Mark grabs his collar, eyebrows furrowed in anger. "What the hell are you doing?" 

[star-wars-multishippers]

Get to Know Me(me) - The Members of SW Multishippers!

This was an event hosted on the Discord server to do a sort of re-introduction of both old and new joiners to the server. Everyone who wanted to participate filled out the survey below to share a little about themselves and about their faves in fandom.

Survey (for anyone who wants to join in below in the comments):

Who Am I? - Name, username on other sites, mini bio if you'd like Where do I fit into the SW fandom? - Prequels, Sequels, EU, etc. What do you do? Fic, art, lurking and reblogging? My Top Faves - 2 or 3 max please! My Own Stuff - 1 or 2 max please!

MBlair

Who am I?

MBlair both on Discord and on AO3, maggzblair on Tumblr (MBlair, maggzblair)

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

Mostly lurker/reblogger/occasional writer, mostly Original Trilogy and Sequel trilogy.

Fics I Love to Rec

Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns (and associated fics) by chancecraz

Hand of Fate by sweetestcondition

My Fics I Love to Rec

Reyuxmas 2019

A Wonderful Winter on Hoth

I’ll Love You ‘Til the Suns Burn Out

feckyeslife

Who Am I?

Feckyeslife#2003 on Discord, firelord65 on AO3

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

I'm pretty solidly a Sequels fan, but I have a special place in my heart for the Prequels. I'm a fic writer who dabbles mostly in canon universe AUs, what ifs, that sort of stuff. Primarily my fics have Rey with a tendency to focus on the First Order characters and plots.

My Top Faves

A classic Reylo fic from an old friend - Beneath the Facade. It technically has a prologue fic before it in the series, but this piece was the one that I really enjoyed way back in the EARLY days of Reylo.

Because I'm an insufferable Reylux fan, I have to rec at least one. This piece by @every-day-is-star-wars-day  a oneshot that ever so masterfully crushes my heart every time - Thread

My one Original Trilogy rec, this is a beast of a long fic but so, so good - Dark Times

My Own Stuff

Reylux, medieval AU - La Vita Primus - is the first in a small series of this AU

Reylo, TROS Fix-It - Oh but it's a dark future, my star. Oh but it's a soft morning for us soon.

apple-au

Who Am I?

Call me apple. she/her/hers. I’m gold_pen_leaps on dreamwidth, ao3, and pillowfort. @gold_pen_leaps@tenforward.social on mastodon. I am doing my best to boycott tumblr, but I've been known to use a tumblr link embed on pf from time to time. (gold_pen_leaps (DW), gold_pen_leaps (AO3))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

I’m mainly into the Sequels and the Mandalorian. I joined the server for Hux/Kylo/Rey and all the combinations of the characters in my ot3. I can edit better than I can write. Sometimes I comment on fics.

My Top Faves

A Dance of Titans by @lucidlucy is a really long reylux fic. The delicious slowburn makes all the flavors combine in an amazing way. Love how they battle the main villain!

My Own Stuff

I helped give feedback on the second part of a series. Does that count? This is knight_of_dance's fic. It's really cool to see writers' takes on Modern AU, and this one has influenced my ideas of what sort of kinks those characters have. :smirk: Switch Up

Mizz

Who Am I?

 hi! tho im much more...a lurker around here im mizz (she/they/he). im badarmada on tumblr, badwrong-gimme on pillowfort, gimmemrss on twitter, badwrongprincess on ao3 (i have so many usernames XD, ive got a dreamwidth, wordpress, and art insta too if youre interested lol)

(@badarmada, gimmemrss (twitter), badwrongprincess (AO3))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

i liked the prequels as a kid (still do kinda), rouge one, i do like clone wars tho i havent finished it and the sequels (well tfa and tros tho only one of them is good imo) i reblog stuff mostly and read fanfic, tho i write some stuff too. finn is my fav and pretty much my center character (ie the one i focus on the most) and i like most finn ships (favs being finnhux, finnlo, finnrey)

My Top Faves

the things we do for love by glare is an unfinished finnlohux fanfic that i love a lot

worlds are built for two by synergenic (Losseflame). this is a poefinn fic from finns pov

My Own Stuff

um...im still working on this fic -(Be More Chill, Hux) very slowly this year has been super hard on me writing wise and ive been drawing ocs and for another fandom mostly but I will finish this one day!

Arsanimo - Marion

Who Am I?

Hi, I’m Arsanimo, self taught artist and nerd from Germany that’s mostly lurking. You can find me with this username on tumblr, twitter and instagram. I draw mostly Reylo at the moment. ( @arsanimo, Arsanimo (Twitter), Arsanimo (IG))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

I‘m in my thirties and an OT fan since birth, because my dad was obsessed with Star Wars and we watched it a lot as kids - they are the go to christmas movies in our family. Even as a very small kid I loved Vader. I didn’t like the ST quite as much when it came out in cinemas but still watched them multiple times. I’m much more fond of them now. But my love for Star Wars really got renewed with the ST. I really liked TFA and TLJ a lot. Not a great fan of TROS though, but to each their own. I recently started watching TCW, if you haven’t go watch it! The Mandalorian is also great and feels more like the OT for me, which I love. Oh, and R1 was awesome, I loved that one! Solo also was good. I think I will be a lifelong fan because it’s such a rich universe and everybody can pick a favorite. I’m also good at ignoring the parts I don’t like, lol. But I‘m mostly exhausted about all the drama on social media, so at the moment I take a bit of a break from social media and only post from time to time. And I’m of the firm believe to ship and let ship and if the art and fics are good, you can also find me enjoying ships outside of Reylo (honestly, some Kylux art out there, woah... and Finnrey is always so tender but Stormpilot has two hot guys in it... and don’t get me started about Finnrose! You probably get the gist)

My Top Faves

It’s hard to name so few, there are so many good artists out there. But Winter of Her (Twitter) has some outstanding art in her own style. Than I really like the style of Khallion (Twitter), check her out.

My Own Stuff

And last but not least two pieces of mine that turned out pretty good

https://twitter.com/arsanimo/status/1275789997426311173?s=21

https://twitter.com/arsanimo/status/1258757927910989825?s=21

Knight_Of_Cookies

Who am I?

Allo allo, I go by many names but many know me as cookies here. Lol I'm from the US and I've been a lifelong A+, gold star , nerd my whole life. I love writing among 5 million other hobbies. I am on Tumblr and A03. (@knight-of-cookies, Knight_of_Cookies (AO3))

Where do I fit into the SW fandom?

It all started with the prequels which I fell in love with and even wrote my first fan fic on. (I dragged it from fanfic.net to A03 for my own form of personal torture) I dropped out of star wars until I was in Japan and a close group of friends got me to watch Roque One and play a star wars based table top role playing game, which dumped me back into this fandom hardcore. I fell in love with the sequel trilogy and now I'm stuck forever. Lol

I have been writing on A03 for around 2 years now for star wars and it's been the most productive and progressive work I've ever done thanks to ya'll.

Also, hey, I created this multishippers discord, because multishipping rocks and everyone should do it. :P I know I've never active enough but I love this space and the people in it! My fav part about multishipping is how I'm always discovering yet another ship that is awesome. It never ends. ^^

My top favs - (of things no one should be surprised by)

Beastie by @feckyeswriting. It spawned a written series(multiple actually)

Glutton by Witchoil. Just very good dark and wonderful kinky smut. Always go back to this one.

In the house that skywalker built by @aicosu. This story got me into Reylux in a way I'll never recover from.

My own stuff

Nothing but Themselves - This is my favorite beast of a story I've ever written and it will be beautiful when I finish it. One day. Lol

Tanzaku - One of my most polished pieces thanks to the Reylo Anthology. My best combo of: insert culture nerding here and captive Ben as personal tropes.

[hmsannlett]

Foe the salty asks:

4. Do you have a NoTP?

25. Would you change the ending of Anna/Hewlett(/Selah)???

4. Anna/Abe is a big nope for me and is probably the ship that irks me the most on the show because there’s so many destructive elements to it, and yet the show just kept pushing it. Their relationship has huge collateral damage for everyone who has the misfortune of getting dragged into it and, imo, does a disservice to both their characters (especially/mainly Anna).

Anna/Simcoe also bothers me, because she could not more clearly be terrified of him, and he uses that against her and doesn’t respect any of the times that she says no to him. It especially strikes a negative chord with me because I’ve been in Anna’s position more than a few times with men that just won’t take a no (although not to the extent that Simcoe took it to), so I truly empathize with the powerlessness that she feels. It’s the worst position to be in, and to feel completely alone like she does makes the situation all the more unsettling.

Both ships are unhealthy in their own ways, imo. Fortunately, neither ship is/has been very popular in the fandom.

25. Oh, goodness. So many thoughts on this. I’ll try to not write a whole thesis here lol and just distill it down to my main thoughts.

In short, yes, I would love a different ending. I will preface all of this, though, by saying that I’d like married couples to be happy with each other and remain together as much as anyone. I’m not completely against the idea of Anna/Selah (though Annlett is my fav and will always be my otp); I just don’t agree with how all of Anna/Selah was written and how Anna/Selah/Hewlett ended.

So, from a writing perspective, I think Selah was brought in too late in S4 to have the character development that he needed after how he was depicted in S1 (and, according to the show’s writers, Anna and Selah were supposed to have a pretty unhealthy dynamic in S1; some of these scenes had to be cut for time constraints, though, so we only get small glimpses of this dynamic). There wasn’t much opportunity to connect positively with Selah in S1 or S4, and as a result, his quick character arc in S4 (to me) breaks the age-old writing rule of showing vs. telling.

There’s no buildup to Anna’s and Selah’s reunion that shows him growing as a character or even what it was that caused him to grow and respect Anna. Why would he suddenly respect her now in S4 more than he did in the first part of S1 after she all but said that she wanted to end their marriage by jumping from the boat, publicly humiliating him, and causing their lengthy separation – during a time period when desertion/an extended period of separation was, in some of the colonies, considered equal to divorce? There’s no apparent motivation (that we’re shown) to inspire his growth. We’re just told as an audience that he’s changed, and I think that weakens the growth that the writers were aiming for. It could be that Selah spent a lot of time reflecting while he was in Philadelphia, but we don’t get to see that onscreen. And for me, what is shown on the screen is much more convincing and effective than whatever we are told happens off-screen.

My other issues with Anna/Selah’s ending are that

1.) If their relationship was so unhealthy before, is his change in how he treats her sustainable? (Would he still treat her with respect after he found out/got confirmation about her affair w/Abe? That tended to make a woman “damaged goods” back then.)

2.) If Anna feels that “he’s not the same man I married,” why then does she seem so upset in 4.10 when they return to Setauket and in the epilogue? It seems like the story ends w/Anna being in exactly the same spot she was in in S1 – unhappy w/her life for whatever reason – and feels like she had more of a character circle than a character arc. She didn’t really end up anywhere different than where she started, even though she had grown so much throughout the show. It just feels like lazy writing to me, and I had really hoped that all of Anna’s sacrifices and growth during the war would be rewarded (even if that wasn’t necessarily a future w/Hewlett like my shipper heart wanted).

Conversely, there was excellent growth shown between Anna and Hewlett, both individually and as a couple. We got to watch each of them grow to respect each other’s character, sacrifice for each other, and fight for each other over the span of almost two seasons – and do so even when both of them felt there was no hope that the relationship could continue. There was a purity and selflessness to their relationship that none of the other relationships on the show were really able to capture, and, imo, is absent from most relationships in films/shows. And I had hoped that that kind of character development would be rewarded or at least considered in S4 after dedicating so much screen time to it. I also feel that Hewlett offers what Anna truly wants: respect, agency, and to be seen as a person, an equal. Like I said above, I don’t know if Selah could offer that level of respect long-term in their relationship. I’d like to hope so, for Anna’s sake, but she definitely doesn’t seem satisfied to me in 4.10.

Anna and Hewlett each left a significant mark on each other and were an enormous part of each other’s individual growth, and I feel like that was largely ignored in S4. For two characters so dedicated to their causes (and practically acting as the epitomes of the two sides’ warring ideologies) to be able to see each other as people and respect the person/character they saw in each other, even at the end of their relationship, is huge. And it seems like the writers just abandoned that without a second thought because they felt that they (finally) had to be historically accurate.

So for me, it’s disappointing that a show that was so heavily focused on character development (and, by and large, executed that development very well throughout the seasons) took what felt like a cop out and didn’t fully realize/fulfill Anna’s, Selah’s, and Hewlett’s individual character arcs. Since the showrunners felt they had to keep Anna/Selah for historical accuracy, I would have preferred that their relationship had been given more time to develop before his arrival in S4 because they had grown very far apart and had significant issues to address before moving forward. But ideally, of course, my Annlett shipper self would have liked the writers to stick with the two seasons of character development between Anna and Hewlett, resolve their relationship, and find a way of kindly writing Selah out (because, tbh, he kind of deserves a better ending too. Anna did betray him deeply, and it’s a lot to ask of him to just overlook/forgive that and move forward with their relationship. Furthermore, I don’t know that Anna is capable of really, truly loving him – it’s always come off as more loyalty/obedience to me – and that’s not a very satisfying conclusion for his character either). And as for how I would end Anna/Selah/Hewlett…well, there is a fic in the works…

Annnnd this is over 1k and has indeed become a thesis, so I’ll leave it at that because this is probably waaaaay more than you wanted lol. This post pretty much hits the nail on the head (succinctly! unlike me lol) with my frustrations about the writing of Anna/Selah/Hewlett and the closure of their character arcs/relationship arcs, as well as the balance of character development and historical accuracy. If you want me to explain any of my litany of thoughts more than I have here (this is the best I can do at an overview of all my thoughts lol; I have many), I can write responses/metas that go into more detail. :)

tl;dr: I wish the show had decided earlier on whether it was going to go with the character development it had created or with historical accuracy, because I don’t feel either Anna/Hewlett or Anna/Selah got the ending they deserved. Annlett was left with two seasons of development unfinished and forgotten, and Anna/Selah was drawn to a close without enough development to make it feel truly convincing for me.

[stargazing-enby]

Writing tag game

Thanks for the tag @maesterchill! 🥰😍

AO3 name: OTPshipper98 

Fandoms: I mostly only write for Harry Potter, but the rest of my fandoms are listed on my bio :) the vast majority of my fics are Drarry!

Tropes:

For writing: hurt/comfort, soulmate AUs, fluff, angst, getting together/love confessions/pining, eighth year, romantic smut, domesticity... in general, I prefer writing romanting/feelsy/painful things over plotty stuff :D

For reading: all of the above, plus creature fic, forced bonding, darkfic, kinky smut, Auror Partners, Drarry as parents/older Drarry, and a long etc 😂

Number of fics: This is a complicated question because a number of my AO3 works are fanarts with a hundred words of fic to go with them, or memefic, or translations. My total amount of works is 102 if we count an unrevealed work for a fest, but 9 of these works are translations of my own fanfic, and some are unfinished wips. So let’s say I’ve finished and published around 85-90 fics XD 

Fic I spent the most time on: actively writing, probably Harry Potter y las Cicatrices Invisibles, which I started in autumn 2017 and finished at the beginning of summer 2018, writing every day and posting several times a week as I wrote. Otherwise, Pumpkin Boy sat in my drafts for an entire year between the moment I started writing it and the day I posted it, so probably that one! (let’s casually ignore all the wips that have been sitting in my laptop for years...)

Fic I spent the least time on: I’ve written a lot of drabbles, but I think one of the drabbles I’ve spent the least time on was A Dream About a Boy, because I wrote it in a haze and barely edited it aftwerwards. There are others I’ve written this way, though, so who knows!

Longest fic: 

In Spanish: Harry Potter y las Cicatrices Invisibles (253k)

In English: Falling for a Golden Boy (44k)

Shortest fic: 

In Spanish: Merece la pena (316 words)

In English: Even If It’s Not for Him (53 words)

Most hits: Falling for a Golden Boy (10489)

Most kudos: Everything a Word Can Mean (1526)

Most comment threads: Harry Potter y las Cicatrices Invisibles (190)

Most bookmarks: Falling for a Golden Boy (416)

Total word count: Again, tricky question because I translate a lot of my works. But the answer is: 528618 words posted on my AO3 (🤯)

Favourite fic I wrote: How could I choose? I often write fic as a coping mechanism, and some of my fics have kept me safe and sane in very bad moments. Others I squeal every time I re-read them because I’m so proud of my writing style, of my ideas, of how I conveyed certain emotion... I can’t choose!

Fic I want to rewrite/expand on: Definitely (Mis)calculations, since it’s still a WIP lol. I also started writing a continuation for A Good Reminder where Harry finds out about Draco’s scars, and I hope I find the motivation to finish it!

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning:

Okay, here's another meme from my memefic, completely out of context:

Apart from that, I am not actively working on anything at the moment. I try to write from time to time, but it's just not happening. So that's all you'll get from me for now XD

Tagging: @tsauergrass, @sweetlialia, @drarrymehome, @kittycargo, @fleetofshippyships, @veelawings, @mfingenius, @cibeewastaken​, @april-thelightfury115​ and anyone who hasn’t been tagged yet but wants to do this--please tag me on your post so I can see! :D

[musicanddancingthroughlife]

Thunderstorm -- Shklance

K this is a little late in coming, sorry. it’s one i started ages ago and only just now finished and it is absolutely not beta read so i apologize again, this time in advance for how poorly it’s probably been written. um in other news my boyfriend and i have been talking about marriage and so in addition to everything else stressing me out we’re planning a wedding and by we i mean me and not him and so im just a mess honestly. anyway have a story. and please feel free to send me other prompts please? I’m almost officially out of finished fics, i just have that one shklance series i was kind of working on, an unfinished shklance sugarbaby au and some klance piece that looks like its going to be a multichapter fic except im scared of commitment so now im ignoring it lol. I also have a klance version of this fic that i might finish and post in the future. im also looking to start on a MCU stevetony or stevebucky or stuckony fic if i ever get my crap together *shrug* i think that’s everything i wanted to say so im shutting up, hope you enjoy :)

--------------------------------

Thunderstorm              

Thunder cracked ahead, low and booming, threatening. Lance whine and curled up into an even smaller ball, a seemingly impossible task, ye tin his desperation, he managed. He tried to simultaneously clamp a hand dover his mouth and cover his ears with his hands, torn between muffling himself and the terrifying noise from outside. His heart ached. He had once loved thunderstorms – loved the rain, the petrichor, the sight of the angry sea, with its rolling waves, the way the storm seemed to reach deep inside him and tug on his own heart. Snuggling into bed with his parents as a child, and later with all his siblings as he comforted them through the storm as his parents once did for him. But that was before Voltron.

              Before the whole war had started, before all the battles and deaths. Before the fear. Before the explosion.

              After so many months out in space, they’d finally returned to earth, only to encounter a raging thunderstorm. Faced with such dangerous conditions (Allura specifically seemed nervous about flying through the storm) and combined with everyone’s exhaustion (thanks to several skirmishes along the way, and everyone’s lack of sleep from excitement at being so close to home), it was decided that they would each land and wait out the storms in their own lions. Thought, Lance was the only one both awake and alone. Or maybe it just felt like that. But, no, the comms were on. Like any of them would allow anything less, not after finally getting Shiro and Keith back.

              Even over the storm, Lance could make out Hunk’s snoring, so he was out. Pidge’s video feed showed she’d finally knocked out, too. Allura and Coran in Blue were holding a quiet conversation, and though Lance couldn’t hear or see them, he knew Shiro and Keith were sheltered together in Black. Another squeak left him before he groaned again, a few tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. Keith was an entirely different problem. Honestly, would it have killed him to maybe just say hi when he first came back? It wasn’t like Lance was asking for a full-blown makeout session (not that he would’ve said no), he just wanted a hi. Maybe a hug. But noooo. Shiro was always the priority for Keith. Not that Lance could blame him. If it ever came down to him or Shiro, he’d choose Shiro, too. But still… Whatever. It was fine. It was going to be fine. He was going to keep quiet and keep still and when this storm ended he’d clean up and bounce back, ready to get back to Earth with his friends. Moving on. Probably never see Shiro or Keith again, when they went their separate ways, so that’s fine. It was fine. It was –

              There was another crack of thunder and Lance yelped again, sobbing pathetically as he lay helpless on the floor. His comms were muted, thank goodness, but he couldn’t help wishing that the others would care enough to come for him and help him, comfort him in some way. But this was fine. He was going. To. Be. Fine.

              “Lance?” Lance choked down on another sob, hardly daring to believe the whisper he thought he’d heard. No, he’d imagined it. Because he’s just that desperate. And pathetic. Right.

              “Lance.” Lance cracked his eyes open and was able to see the outline of Keith’s face in the dim lights from within Red.

              “Keith?” Damn. His voice was hoarse. So quiet. So pathetic. Ugh. Keith didn’t seem to notice, though, so Lance was grateful to him for that.

              “Red felt uneasy, like something was wrong. She’s not used to dealing with emotions, I think,” Keith tried to joke, but Lance only felt guilt settle heavier on him.

              “Oh. Sorry. I’ll uh. I’ll try to keep it down then, ya?” Lance chuckled, though it came out more like a muffled sob, and more tears fell from his eyes, slipping down his face and across his cheek uncomfortably. He shifted to sit up, wiping the tears off as he did so.

              “Hey, no, that’s not what he meant.” And holy heck was that Shiro? Lance peered up carefully, amazed that not only had Keith come, but Shiro had, too. He saw Keith frown, concern shining in his eyes. Why was he concerned? Lance was fine. Just then, Red growled, sending a shiver through both boys.

              “I didn’t mean that you should hide it, Lance,” Keith continued. “What’s wrong? I thought… I thought you loved the rain. We figured you would’ve been thrilled to spend some time here, so why’re you sad?” Shiro joined in, “Are you happy we’re so close to Earth…? But then… why are you laying on the floor, hiding?”

              Lance watched in fascination, storm around them almost forgotten, as Keith and Shiro rambled on, sometimes even talking over each other in their eagerness to help Lance. It almost didn’t even register in Lance’s mind that they had asked him a question, until he noticed they were both standing above him, looking at him expectantly and with worry.

              “Oh! Um ya I’m great! Perfect! Totally fine!” But another bellow of thunder made Lance flinch back, biting his lip to hold back another whimper. Why did they have to come to talk to him now, of all times? There had been plenty of other opportunities where Lance hadn’t looked like a major crybaby, but hey. Truth hurts and all that. Whatever.

              More thunder rumbled above them, and Lance tried to swallow back the sobs as he turned around a curled up in a ball, at least managing to avoid eye contact with the other two. Or at least, he had avoided eye contact, until Shiro reached down and scooped Lance up into his arms. Lance attempted to squirm at first, but quickly gave in, instead gripping Shiro’s shirt in his fists, clinging tightly and hiding his face in his chest. Shiro soothed his quiet, distressed noises, even as he settled himself on the floor, Lance sideways on his lap, still leaning against Shiro, huddling as close as he could possibly get. Keith sat down next to them, leaning over to stretch Lance’s legs across his own. He massaged the tight, tense muscles, joining Shiro with soft words of comfort and praise.

              Together, the two waited with Lance, waited until the storm had let up and the thunder had faded into the distance. By then, Lance had finally relaxed. Though he still hid, the whimpers had been exchanged for somewhat steady breaths, shaky sighs interspersed amongst them. The room had been so quiet and still for so long that initially it took Keith and Shiro some time to realize that Lance was talking to them.

              “It was the explosion. I know it. Was years ago. I know that. I know I’m stupid. Weak. Pathetic. Shouldn’t still be hung up on such a stu-“

              “Stop.” Keith broke in. “Stop it, Lance, because you’re not stupid. You’re not. You’re incredible. And so, so strong.”

              Shiro nosed at Lance’s hair as Lance paused to take in a deep, shaky breath before continuing as if Keith hadn’t interrupted. “The explosion on the castle. With Coran. The thunder sounds just like it.” And the minute they realized what Lance meant, they were back to touching him, soothing him, quieting him. Reassuring. Because even if they hadn’t quite talked about it yet, Lance was theirs. Keith’s and Shiro’s. The team’s. He had a family that he needed to return to. He belonged to Earth, and to his friends. And they were damn well going to get him there.

[krsnlove]

Tribute

Notes: Future TRR Fic. Idk if I’m like baby hungry but all these ideas for the TRR gang as parents has hit me. Blame @alj4890 with all her fics of in between moments of them! They give me life.

Also, this was supposed to be posted yesterday. But I’m useless. Enjoy this trash fic LoL

Also, also, this gif cracks me up! HAHAHAHA

Pairing: Drake x Olivia

Rating: PG [?] There isn’t cursing or anything. 

Tagging: @alj4890 @lodberg @carabeth @toglidethroughlife

“Jules! Hurry up! I need to get in there!,” the pounding on the bathroom door continues in the background but young Juliet Walker continues to ignore the request of her older brother.

On the other side of the door, Jackson Walker quickly types out a text message on his phone and hits the send button. If his younger sister makes him late...he doesn’t want to finish the thought as he continues his assault on the bathroom door.

“JUUUUULIIIIIIIEEEETTTTTT!”

His voice carries through the vast hallways of the Lythikos castle. The members of the Nevrakis-Walker family have chosen to spend their rare, free Saturday evening inside their home. Despite their parents request to spend the evening together as a family, the children jump at the chance to excuse themselves from a family bonding event.

In one room the youngest of the children, Drake Walker II, continues to play the video game his mother sternly forbade him from playing until his homework was finished.

In another room, Olivia Nevrakis-Walker looks up from the book she attempts to read and lets out a sigh. This is it. This is where she loses it, she tells herself as she closes the book.

“Can you go talk to your son?,” she tells Drake.

“He’s your son too ‘Liv.”

“But he’s named after your dad…,” Olivia said with an amused tone. Drake breaks his gaze with the television screen playing the football game as he looks at her with astonishment.

“We’re going to go there?,” she lightly chuckles and shakes her head in reply. Standing from the loveseat they’re seated on, she makes her way out of the room.

“I’m right behind you!,” he calls to her.

“Sure you are,” she replies as she makes her way through the hallways in search of her older children.

After twenty years of marriage, Olivia knew better. They’ve managed to make this whole marriage thing work. Some things just weren’t fighting over, they learned after countless arguments and fights. When they finally learned that, the decision to open up their home, and hearts, to children was made. She still remembers the look of panic on Drake’s face when she became pregnant with Jackson.

The sound of her footsteps approaching his bedroom door are heard by a young Drake Walker as he hastily tries to save his progress on the game. Quickly turning off the console, he barely makes it to his desk with the unfinished homework assignment in its place from two days ago, when the door opens.

“Hey Mom! Just finishing up the last of my homework,” he tries to slow his breathing as he avoids eye contact with Olivia. She tries to hide the small smile playing on her lips, as she makes her way towards the video game console.

Drake’s eyes widen in panic when he realizes what she was up to.

“Mom! No! Stop!,” but his voice falls on deaf ears as Olivia feels the warmth of the console. She quietly thanks a higher being for the Nevrakis ability to easily deceive others hasn’t reached her youngest. Out of their three children, he is most like their father.

She begins to unplug the console and tucks it underneath her arm before she looks at him disapprovingly. His head is down as he continues to avoid her gaze, causing her heart to soften at the sight of her youngest baby. Before she can say anything, he finally comes clean.

“I’m sorry,” he says with remorse. Just like his father, honest, she observes. Motherhood has helped her develop a more merciful side she never knew existed. The image of her child filled with regret tugs at her heartstrings. But she knew she couldn’t give into his big brown eyes, even if he is the spitting image of her husband.

“I know. So you’ll get get this back in about two weeks,” she tells him as she places a soft kiss on top of his head. She turns towards the door in search of her other children.

“Two weeks!?,” he calls out to her in dismay. She doesn’t stop to address him as she walks out the door.

“In about two weeks. Might be longer, sweetie,” she can hear the dramatic groan from his room as she shakes her head in amusement.

The sound of hands banging against a door continue to echo throughout the castle. She’s getting closer as the sound grows louder. She’s finally met with the back of her oldest son, Jackson, continuously striking the door with his fists.

“O-PEN. THE. DOOOOR. JUUUULIEEETTTT!,” she quickly grabs his arm from behind, preventing any further assault on the bathroom door.

“Mom! She’s been in there for the past 45 minutes! I’m going to be late!”

“Jackson, there are seven other bathrooms in this place. Why can’t you use another bathroom?”

His cheeks flush with embarrassment as his voice grows quiet, “I...I left something in this bathroom. I..I need it for my date tonight.” Olivia raises her eyebrow at her oldest son, when the thought occurs to her if they’ve had the birds and the bees talk with him yet.

“Go bring your father here, please. I’ll get Juliet,” she tells him. He reluctantly runs towards the way she came from and begins to call for the eldest Drake.

“Dad! Mom wants you! Daaad!”

“I said bring him here, Jackson! Not yell for him!” The yelling ceases and she turns her attention on her daughter. She softly knocks on the bathroom door.

“Juliet? It’s Mom. Open the door please,” she hears a commotion on the other side when the door finally swings open and her daughter pulls her inside the bathroom, slamming the door shut once again.

Olivia takes in her surroundings and realizes why she had been in here for the past 45 minutes. “Aw, sweetie! Congratulations!,” she goes to give her a hug but senses the apprehension in her daughter.

“Mom...why?,” Olivia notices the start of tears forming in her daughter’s eyes and pulls her into a hug anyway.

“It’s all a part of growing up, Jules. Puberty!, ” she says as she lovingly strokes her daughter’s long auburn hair. “You’re going to get through this, okay? I promise. In the meantime, how about we clean this up? I don’t think your brothers would appreciate this.” Juliet nods her head in agreement as she breaks from her mother’s hold and cleans up the mess she’s made in the bathroom.

Olivia stifles the laugh that comes to her upon seeing the opened, unused tampons and sanitary pads spread over the bathroom floor. It’s not a surprise to Olivia that Juliet went out and purchased feminine hygiene products on her own. She is their most independent child, much to Drake’s disappointment. Since being born, Juliet has had her father wrapped around her finger.

They both come out the bathroom and is met with Drake and Jackson standing outside the door. Jackson throws his hands up in relief as he pushes his way past the two women.

“Finally!”

Drake looks at Olivia and then Juliet, “Everything okay?”, as he notices the look of the paranoia on his daughter’s face.

Juliet nods her head enthusiastically and hurries off to her room. “I’ll be waiting for you Mom!,” she calls out.

Drake watches his only daughter walk off and looks to Olivia for answers. She moves towards him and pulls him into a hug, the bittersweet thought of all her babies growing up puts her into a reflective mood as they stand in each others arms for a moment.

“What was that about?,” he asks as he places a kiss on her forehead. She breaks their hug as she smiles at him.

“Jules started her period,” Drake’s eyes go wide then slowly nods his head.

“The Elder Gods demand tribute. Makes sense,” Olivia lets out a laugh before slapping him upside his head.

“Stop! She’s freaking out,” Drake sheepishly smiles at her while he rubs the spot where she slapped him a few seconds ago.

“There is the subject,” she says just as their oldest comes out of the bathroom, “of your son over there who may have a condom on him.” Drake quickly looks over at a guilt-ridden Jackson who has stuffed something into his pockets.

“Let me know how the talk goes,” she whispers into her husband’s ear before placing a kiss on his cheek.

[akane171]

Considering the SPN fandom, I would be very surprised if there aren't any fics of that...😅

Jup, just one person only focused on continuity, consistency, details etc would be brilliant...😫

Yes, citing. The worst devil you can encounter in life... Like, seriously, not enough that it's a confusing mess anyway, but then there are also different approaches to this confusing mess and it feels like EVERYBODY is doing it differently...😫😑😭 (Thanks for the "cheerleading"😂😊🙈)

Unfinished, unwritten, po-tae-to, po-tah-to 🤷🏻‍♀️ An unfinished fic just means it still has stuff to come that is yet unwritten🤷🏻‍♀️

(Ahhh🤣) Ohhh, yesss😍 More of Karamel, Baree (Btw, I'm still grinning like an idiot over that name, but he's SO ADORABLE!) and the kiddos💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻

Considering there seem to be at least 2 more Arcs to PiaD and the way most prior Arcs had about 20 long-ass chapters, I don't doubt that you'll finish before LW🤣

"Surviving"?😂😅 Oh god, what kind of language classes did they make you suffer?!🙈 But Ohh, it's actually a pretty common phenomenon that people's English improve with watching/writing stuff cause practical usage and authentic experience blahblah 😍🤩 (sorry random unnecessary explanation about language learning🤦🏻‍♀️)

I mean, it's already on my list (which has like 13 languages or so I still wanna learn), but I've been slacking on spanish and romanian and should probably pick those two up properly first since I already started on those...😩 I swear, I need more time to just do stupid shit like binge stuff, write fanfics and LEARN languages and practical skills and all this stuff one would like to but never gets around to learning😭 (I just googled that sentence... "A beetle sounds in the reed"?🤔 Did you mean sth by that or did you write it cause apparently(?) it's the hardest tongue-twister?🤣)

HAHAHA 😂 

Soonish?🤨 Hate you? ...WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING TO OUR POOR KARAMELY COMEDIC DUO IDIOTS?!?! *Goes to grab the protective bazookas* 😭 ...Wait, please don't say Kara is gonna be an idiot with her feet absolutely down her throat like in that bar scene in S2 when she went to tell Mon-El she would never be with him because of the way he is...🙈 

That Cartoon is one of the classics🤷🏻‍♀️😂

XXXXXXXX

I know. As much as i like to stay away from that fandom, they created some amazing shit xD

I mean, come on, how much one person could cost? On the other hand, maybe IGNORING canon was something what they simply do, because they were too dumb to follow their own story. The fact the s6 made absolutely no sense, is just a cherry on the top *sarcasm*

What can I say, my friend, the pain of higher education xD

There is the difference. Unfinished fics need to be finished. About unwritten we can speculate and have a nice conversation :PPP

Happy to hear XD i mean, there was two names for the dog i could have chosen, Kazan and Baree. I think we both can agree the choice was obvious xD i can't imagine a dog called Kazan chasing butterflies xD

Yep. On the other hand, my other ideas for otehr kms fics are extremely long and complicated, but well, you don't look like you would wnat to talk about them, so :(

I mean, typical English classes? Learning grammar and vocabulary in not effecting way, learning shit you will never really use with normal people etc. Learning it felt like, dunno, learning some math issues that you KNOW you will never use in life too and becasue you are not going to choose some science college degree, you don't see any sense in learning it. So, in that case it was surviving. The moment I started needing it, I started really learning it. Aka, bascially, reading fics and books some time later xD... and writing fics, because some people refused to write things I wanted to read, lol

Oooooooooh, that sounds super cool! So you learn languages in th easy way? I'm so jealous! I have learnt French and German in school, but never really got to the higher level than "i want to buy beer" xD And i have learnt Japanese for 5 years at university and I can say more in it (but seriosuly i have too come back to it and refresh it).

In my case, I feel comfortable in a foreign language when I can think in it. What means I feel like that only about English and Polish xD

It's our most famous Polish line for kids and we use it when we want to scare foreigners away :P

My beta did her magic, so it will be post soon! No, don't worry, not this kind of angst. What probably means, you should worry about other stuff xDDDD

Yes, it is, and the opening song just drill into your BRAIN (xD) and after so many years I still can sing it xD

[real-life-sucks-ass]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

I’ve been tagged by @inrainbowz! Thanks for giving me an occasion to blab about my writing to the world :D

1. List of works published this year:

So, according to AO3 I wrote 224132 words in 2017. But tbh I’ve not been very productive, I only wrote a few chapters for two WIP (still unfinished) and a single one-shot. The rest is the exact same stuff, but translated into english. Take a look:

One Video Man (One Vidéo Man in french): This is a Youtube!AU fic for the One Punch Man fandom. I had this stupid idea about a AU where everyone is human, in our world, and every character runs a Youtube channel. That’s all. I just describe videos so the reader feels like they’re watching this on Youtube. I have no plan, no scenario, no nothing. But the thing is, I encourage my readers to post fake Youtube comments for the characters to answer, and to give me some ideas about what should happen next and what kind of video I should write. So yeah, it’s kind of a fun experience, and I like trying new stuff and interact with my readers (I did something a bit like this for a spn fic a few years ago). But I’m so slow at updating, my readers are dying with frustration lol.

Albion’s last bulwark (Le dernier rempart d’Albion in french): This is a BBC Merlin fic, and actually it is a sequel for my fic Le dernier souffle de Kilgharrah I have yet to translate into english. It can be read separately, though. It is a resurrection fic in Arthur’s point of view. He comes back to life in our world today and realize he’s lost his kingdom, his wife, everything, and Merlin looks like an old man and is obviously not so happy about his return. I wanted them to struggle to get their relation back. I wanted Arthur to feel lost and alone. This fic is filled with angst and is merthur. I still have about 5 chapters to write & translate to complete it.

A cheap spell (Un sort au rabais in french): I wrote this short Merthur OS just for funsies and I also made a drawing here. Basically Arthur went missing and everyone is worried sick (especially Merlin) and looking for him everywhere... but Arthur is right there under their noses, only turned into a toad and frustrated because no one recognizes him. Well it’s not much, but it was fun to write.

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

Definitely Albion’s last bulwark (Le dernier rempart d’Albion in french). You have no idea. This fic is my precious, my everything. I’m pouring my whole soul in it. I could talk about it all day. This is the fic that made me want to get better in english just so I could translate it at some point.

Why? Because CloudFactory and I have been thinking about it for years before I even started writing it. I do all the writing, but we made out the story together, we thought every little detail through, and she’s my betareader both in french and in english. Because we worked hard to get the characterization right. Because I had been dying to read a resurrection fic in which Merlin has been deeply changed by centuries of living in a changing world, so I decided to write it myself. I wanted a Merlin who went through some rough stuff that had nothing to do with Arthur at all. I wanted a Merlin living like an hermit, but not because he’s waiting for Arthur to return, but for a totally different reason. Because I wanted Arthur to grieve for Camelot, for Gwen, for his past life. Because I wanted Arthur to return for a very serious reason, because Albion truly is in danger. Also, because dragons. In this fic, Merlin has a bunch of dragons, including a baby one, I love writing them.

So yeah, I’m so fucking proud of this fic and I will cry tears of pure joy once I complete it.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

Well I’m kinda proud of everything I wrote in 2017, but if I really have to pick one, I’d say A cheap spell (Un sort au rabais in french) because, well, I wrote it quickly and I felt the merthur was bit rushed and OOC. But that’s because I’m the kind of author who usually needs at least 10 chapters to bring some romance, so... Also, writing crack is fun, but I’m way better at writing angst.

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing: Okay so I’ll follow @inrainbowz‘s example and show one in french first, then one in english. But only for my fic Albion’s last bulwark (Le dernier rempart d’Albion in french), because yup, I’m really really proud of it.

Voilà un petit extrait en français, du dernier chapitre en date pour Le dernier rempart d’Albion :

- Et nous nous sommes rencontrés ?

Freya esquissa un pâle sourire qu’Arthur n’aurait su qualifier d’amusé ou triste.

 - Oui. Tu es celui qui m’as tuée.

Arthur eut une inspiration de surprise et ses yeux s’écarquillèrent.

- Quoi ?

 - Laisse-moi te rafraîchir la mémoire…

Lorsqu’une main creva la surface du lac, suivie d’un poignet gracile et d’un bras nu, Arthur se recula vivement et tomba assis, le souffle coupé. Le reflet de Freya soulevait la nappe d’eau et sa tête émergea à son tour, ses cheveux ruisselant sur son visage, ses épaules et sa poitrine à peine couvertes d’une robe en lambeaux. Le cœur battant à tout rompre, Arthur déglutit et s’efforça de rester calme et de ne pas dégainer Excalibur face à ce spectacle aussi terrifiant qu’époustouflant. Car ce corps qui avait surgi jusqu’à la taille et se penchait à présent sur lui la main tendue, il était translucide, uniquement composé d’eau.

And now another one, in english this time:

Merlin steadied his stance and turned a dark and hateful glare at Arthur. His cheeks seemed hollower and his cheekbones sharper now that he had turned back to his young self. The look on his face was frightening, full of rage.

"Merlin, pull yourself back together!" Arthur ordered, striding right to him. "Don't make me knock you out!"

There was a heavy aura surrounding Merlin when he raised an open hand toward Arthur.

Everything happened very fast. The shock wave that hit him threw him back with a staggering blow, tearing his feet away from the ground. He crashed into the glass doors, smashing them to pieces, and pain flared in his back. He might have lost consciousness for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the concrete strewn with sharp glass fragments and the wounds on his back had reopened, soaking his t-shirt with blood.

He cut his palms on the shards trying to get up, but he clenched his teeth and ignored the pain. There would be plenty of time to worry later about how dizzy he felt and his vision starting to blur. For now, the urgency was Merlin.

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received:

Okay so I had never once received a comment on AO3 for my fic Le dernier rempart d’Albion because well, french readers are pretty rare on this website and most of them prefer to read in english anyway. And when I started translating it into english, I got a very enthusiastic comment of someone who loved it. And she wanted to know what happened next so bad, she couldn’t wait for me to translate, so she went and read the next chapters in french, even though her french was rusty and she couldn’t understand everything. I had never been so happy reading a comment. That someone enjoyed the story so much they made the effort to read it in french... Yeah, this made my whole year :D And she still reads both the french version and english translation, waiting for each new chapter. Best reader ever. I love her. <3

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

From august to december, biggest writing block ever. I had no motivation, no inspiration, no energy and I think it had to do with work and real life being crazy, but also because CloudFactory was very busy, so I had no cheerleader to force me to write lol.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

Probably ever character in One Video Man? I control nothing in this fic, I just get carried away by my readers’ ideas and the inspiration of the moment.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I think I started to understand that I should not be so hard on myself. I’m a perfectionist, so sometimes it blocks my writing when I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to get it perfect on the first draft. I think I made a lot of progress in descriptions too.

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

I hope I’ll be able to write faster and to stop procrastinating. I need to use less adjectives too.

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

CloudFactory ( @less-life-and-more-dream ) and Jackallh ( @geek-trough-time-and-space ) are the best. I just have to chat with them about my fics, and yay! Ideas! Inspiration! Motivation! Also tumblr and the Merlin fandom inspire me every day new ideas :p

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

When Merlin brings Arthur in London, I used some real life experience, since I’ve been in London for my 30 years birthday with @less-life-and-more-dream, @geek-trough-time-and-space and @dupond-and-dupont. The fish n’ chips I described in the fic, also Hyde’s park and its geese, all came from my happy memories :D

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Don’t thrive for perfection. Just do your best, and even if you hate it, you can still edit later. You WILL get better by writing, it’s a slow process, but for this to happen you have to write.

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

First, I have to complete Albion’s last bulwark and One Video Man, both in french and english. Also in a few months I’ll post my translation in english for Albion’s last bulwark’s prequel: Le dernier souffle de Kilgharrah. Then, I plan to write a prequel to Le dernier souffle de Kilgharrah, about the days, months and years just after Arthur died. The whole story will be a trilogy in the end! :D

I consider taking back one of my old abandoned WIP too (I have a Supernatural fic and a Whitechapel ITV fic uncompleted), but I’m not sure I’ll have the time for it. I have AT LEAST three other Merlin fanfics I really reaaaaaally want to write.

14. Tag five writers/artists whose answers you’d like to read.

@creepywonderland-pony @dupond-and-dupont @andersandrew @istadris @always-keep-writing and whoever wants to do this!

[itsclowreedsfault]

I was tagged by @lovingnikiforov​. Thank you Dessa <3

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

I used to have a different username which I dare not say because it was so fucking embarassing, back from my FF.net and writing for HP when I was 12 days lol right before I started writing for BNHA though I changed my AO3 username to match my tumblr one, because you know... brand recognition and all that. (damn you twitter and your character limit)

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos)

Bookmarks -  what really matters (113) Subscriptions - Wandering Wolf (101) Hits - what really matters (3860) Kudos -   what really matters (503)     (holy shit you guys really love this fic huh)

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

It’s a silly image but I love it, and it illustrates the two things I love the most: cats and books :3 I actually had a friend draw that for me back when I was planning on using it on a bookish blog I had, but I never really used it.

(putting the rest under the cut since there’s a lot of questions)

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

I do have regulars that I recognize always popping up on my inbox and I love them dearly ♥ As for favorites, every commenter is a favorite of mine okay, if you leave me a comment you gain a star on my favorites list. But I do have a few of the comments that got to me the most coming up on a post for @ficwritersweek​ next week, so keep an eye out for that!

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

I used to have a habit of rereading, but lately I haven’t even had time to keep up with all the fics I’d like to read, so I haven’t reread anything in a looooong time.

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

Subscribed to 16, and 75 bookmarked. I’m actually pretty picky about the fics I subscribe to/bookmark >.<

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

Fantasy AUs in general. I have a weakness for those okay, I love worldbuilding.

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

Subscriptions: 48 Bookmarked: 740

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

Nothing I have thought of yet, no haha 10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

writing in general Holy shit what I wouldn’t give to be able to maintain a regular update schedule. Bless all my readers who are reading my WIPs because I know I take a long time to update. (for those reading Wandering Wolf btw fear not, I know it’s been like, 2 months *hides self in embarassment* but I promise the last chapter will be out sooner rather than later).

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

If I consider every fandom I’ve ever written for, popular ships. Back when I started writing for BNHA (which is like half my fics) TodoBaku was a rarepair, but at this point I don’t think it can be considered that anymore, although it’s not popular like others.

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

38.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

I have no idea, since I have stuff across google drive, zen writer, and my computer folder and am too lazy to count them lol

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

When it’s an idea that (I think) is going somewhere, I write them down. They stay in my head for quite a while taking shape before that, though.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

That it’s posted (and finished lol), no.

16. How did you discover AO3?

I think it was probably through tumblr? Believe it or not I had no idea AO3 existed back until I joined anime fandom in 2016. I was away from fandoms in general for many years so I only had knowledge of FF.Net :P

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

For all my previous fandoms, hell no, I don’t think anyone would even know my username xD As for BNHA, if we’re thinking of the fandom as a whole, no. I’d say I’m kinda popular with the TodoBaku fandom, though. 

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

Not really.

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

Hmm, if we’re talking about fics especifically, I’d say everyone in the FicWriters Family from the Grimmauld Place HP forum. Those people were my first contact with fanfic (and fandom friendships) and they were absolutely amazing and inspiring ♥

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

First of all: keep writing. Even if at first you don’t get a lot of attention, keep writing, because you can bet someone out there reads your stuff and is happy that you’re posting them. Second, I found that having a group of people you can share your fics with helps - I think a good part of the reason why I even started getting readers for my TodoBaku fics was because I’d share the links in the Discord server for the ship and the people there would read them.

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

Depends. With one-shots I usually wing it (unless it’s a long one like Silver Lining was). For multichapters, I outline, though most of the time things get out of control and I end up changing things a lot from the original plan :P

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

Thank God, no. With the way I doubt my writing even without getting those, I’d probably be crying everytime I tried to write a word for the next months, at least. don’t be like me

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Smut is my doom. I takes me ridiculously long to write and never comes out the way I wish it did xD I also have a hard time writing angst.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

everything we (never) planned (todobaku urban fantasy/fake dating au)

Wandering Wolf (todobaku fantasy au)

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

Depends on what you mean by “plan”. I have tons of ideas, some with vague scenes/outlines planned, but I tend to focus on one story (or chapter) at a time.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

At this point my goal is just to write every day lol and I’m failing spectacularly at it

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

Holy shit, yes. So much. Let’s not even consider the fics I wrote when I was 11 because *cringe* but even if I take the stuff I wrote last year when I started getting back into writing fic I can already see a huge difference. Actually, even if I take my first TodoBaku fics from a few months ago, I feel like my writing now has changed a lot from what it was back then.

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

Wandering Wolf. Even though it’s not finished yet, I am really attached to this AU and I love writing it. I consider it one of my best fics so far.

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

Any of my older cringe-worthy smut fics which I refuse to link for the embarassment lol

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Since I’m a slow af writer who has yet to go back to writing original fiction I’m not gonna say with a novel written, but I hope to at least have started working on one.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

This is gonna be a conflicting answer, but I’d say worldbuilding. Funny enough, it can also be one of the hardest things, but while it’s a lot of work I tend to have an easiest time slipping worldbuilding into a story than, say, writing dialogue or figuring out plot.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Not letting self-doubt stop you. No, for real, I mean it. Dialogue is hard? Yes. Description is hard? Yes. Action scenes are hard? Yes. But being able to force yourself to keep writing even when you feel like every single word you write is shit and want to compare yourself to everyone else - that’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, and am constantly fighting to do.

33. Why do you write?

The simplest answer would be, because it’s something I love doing. I love coming up with new worlds, new stories, knowing that I’m sharing something that people are interested in. It goes way beyond that, but suddenly I can’t write well enough to express the feeling (oh, the irony).

I’m going to tag: @chosenofkagami, @cloversdreams, @xenophonspeaks, @ninannarambling and @auriadne. If any of you don’t want to do this feel free to ignore it! :)